Day 28 - SDR

Pool therapy days are Tuesday's & Thursday's so Morgan was very happy to see it on her schedule today!  Other than that, more of the same and her school sessions have been cancelled the last two days due to substitute teacher no show (Morgan excited about this, Mom not so much). We have a standing approval now for "day passes" as long as I sign a form so took another little afternoon walk outside again.  We walked over to the State Capital building (Morgan thought "it looks like the White House") which is only about 3 blocks from here and had a short self guided tour of the inside, I figured a social studies lesson wouldn't hurt in absence of school today and after an uncooperative math attempt :)
I don't think I have shared this positioning worksheet yet either - something we have to fill out daily to track all of her time in the different apparatuses and honestly like a second full time job trying to fit it all in!  I feel a sense of achievement on days we actually get this done!

Day 27 - SDR

Morgan had a full day of therapy today, RobALT, etc and seemed pretty tired by the end of her sessions!  I attended a family conference will all of the therapists, providers and doctors on the team here as well as school district on the phone.  They summarized her progress and confirmed discharged date set for next Friday, April 19th.  OT will start sending someone in Wednesday morning to get her doing some self care & dressing on her own and PT to continue working on walking and transitioning.  She will have a wheelchair at discharge (likely for several weeks) and potentially a walker but should hopefully be walking and standing independently for short periods which they do controlled at her therapy sessions.  The Psychologist was also helpful in sharing how she explains and gets feedback from Morgan using pretend play with dolls on what they are doing in therapy, why she has to exercise her arms & core even though her surgery was for her legs, and now will focus on explaining transition back home and school.  Outpatient Physical therapy begins the 22nd will be 5 days per week for 4 weeks and then down to 2-3 days per week and we will start this at Gillette's in Burnsville. Her incision site still has a couple of steri-strips hanging on but doctors/nurses have commented on how well it looks and have been putting fresh Aloe, Vitamin E and Coconut oil on it to help heal and lesson the scarring.  The highlight of her day was getting outside for a short walk on this nice Spring day (getting our fresh air in before the snow later this week!), I pushed her in the wheel chair a few blocks to pick up some snacks at Lunds.  They also had a fun evening activity cutting out and taping the insides/anatomy & decorating :)

Day 26 - SDR

Morgan had an hour of PT and 1/2 hr of OT on Saturday and then got a day pass to spend the rest of the afternoon at home! We brought her back up to the hospital to spend the night on Saturday night and then were able to go home again all day today.  We try to keep her prone as much as possible at home and not sitting too much per instructions but its a bit more difficult without the prone cart & stander.  When we got back this evening I had her spend some time in the stander without her knee immobilizers (make her work a little more) and she did fine, occupied with the playroom toys.  She has a busy day tomorrow so had her go to bed early!

Day 24 - SDR

Morgan was exhausted by the end of the day today!  Lots of work at therapy - she spent 1/2 hour in the RobALT walking which is actually quite difficult to keep her entertained during, note the bubbles in the video.  I also watched the last half of her last PT session and she was working on standing up from sitting position and taking steps while holding onto and pushing a large exercise ball.  Great to see her taking steps and not on her toe!  Her right leg is quite weak as expected so continue to work on strengthening exercises.  We will also start doing the stander without her knee immobilizers on to make her work a little harder.  Great news we get day passes for both Sat after therapy and Sunday so looking forward to weekend time at home!

Day 23 - SDR

Morgan had a busy day today!  This morning Gillette's had an event by Reese's with the NCAA All-Star basketball team, Miss Minnesota, mascots, etc. all here visiting the kids so she had fun participating in those activities and getting autographs and pictures before therapy!  She was SO excited for her first pool therapy and already doing great standing and walking in the water with little assistance.  The therapy pool is very cool, the floor lowers/raises and as you can see in the pic there are cameras to watch her walking patterns.  She still wants to toe walk on that right foot (which apparently is very common) and they are retraining her brain on this. She got her new right foot AFO fitted and finished today also, again pink with a unicorn on the back.  They increased her afternoon PT session to an hour also so she had 2 hours of PT today and one hour of OT and spent some time riding around in the adaptive trike again.  We will get this tomorrow night to use in the evenings and weekends- add another apparatus to the daily routine! I spoke to her therapist about the goals for the next couple of weeks and next step is to get her walking with a reverse walker like she used to have and continue to work on unassisted transitioning to get her self reliant.  She is very pleased with how well Morgan is doing and how quickly she is building her strength back.  The bath is still broken so had to make do with the shower after pool therapy and she actually handled this pretty well.  We spent the evening playing BINGO with child life and she is very tired. 

Day 22 - SDR

The cast is off :) Very happy to move forward with the RobALT now in PT and starting to work on walking again!  I believe it was 21 days she had to wait for her incision to heal and can now begin pool therapy and take baths which she is very excited about and we see pool therapy on the schedule for tomorrow!  The big bath tub they have was apparently broken yesterday and hoping they have it fixed by tomorrow, would be good to have her soak her foot after the cast removal and for the steri-strips which are barely hanging on to her incision.  She continues to do 3 hrs in the stander per day, 1 1/2 hrs in the wheelchair and 3 hrs in the prone cart daily plus riding the trike during therapy.  Here is some additional information on the RobALT:
https://www.gillettechildrens.org/conditions-care/robotic-assisted-locomotor-training-lokomat

Day 20 - SDR

I think we are past the halfway point so on the down hill stretch!  It is getting a little bit easier every day as she can do more on her own and much more comfortable.  She is med free now and slept great last night.  I believe they upped her wheel chair time to 1/2 hr (was 15 mins) three times per day.  She also got to ride the trike today and seemed to enjoy and actually pedaled on her own which is not something she has really mastered pre-surgery and helps to have these adaptive trikes.  She is also very happy there is no school in the schedules this week because St Paul district is also on spring break :)
We have been in the playroom more now on her stander & wheel chair and she loves to play with the kitchen and castle but definitely getting frustrated not being able to walk and do things she has in the past, we just encourage her to keep working hard at PT!